Resolution
by bingblot
Summary: A short one-shot speculation fic based on the sneak peek(s) to 7x6, "The Time of Our Lives". She really had no idea who he was. **SPOILER ALERT** Do NOT Read unless you've watched the sneak peeks for the upcoming episode!


Disclaimer: Still not mine. As will become very, very obvious once this episode actually airs, I'm sure.

Author's Note: A very short one-shot speculation fic after watching the teaser sneak peek scene for 7x6, "The Time of Our Lives," (a.k.a. the Wedding Episode!) of Beckett interrogating Castle. I had to write it, after seeing the expression on Castle's face at the end of the clip. So obviously, some major spoilers ahead and it won't make any sense to anyone who's stayed spoiler-free (who has a lot more self-control than I do) and hasn't seen the sneak peek.

**Resolution**

Oddly—or not oddly at all—what cut the most, what really made Castle suddenly feel as if all the blood in his body had turned into ice water, wasn't her words or her demeanor or even the way she drew her hand away from his, flinching away from his touch as if he were a stranger—a deranged stranger.

No, what really hurt was her eyes. Her beautiful, expressive eyes that he loved so much and had seen in every mood—happy, sad, scared, tender, loving, lustful, angry, hurt, amused, even betrayed. But he'd never, he realized, not even when they'd first met six years ago at his book release party, seen her eyes like this—indifferent.

She meant what she'd said, he realized. To her, in this bizarre world he seemed to have been thrust into, it was true—this Kate Beckett had no idea who he was, not even his reputation as an author, a playboy, nothing. He was… nobody… to her.

He'd thought she might be kidding, lying, _something_. This was Kate—of course it was Kate—he knew her, knew the way she moved, the way she spoke. Knew every flicker of expression across her face, knew every inch of her body. His mind suddenly flashed back to a case from a couple years ago, the one of the dance contestant who'd assumed someone else's life in an attempt to achieve her dream. That could never happen to Kate because he knew her too well for any doppelganger, no matter how close the resemblance, to fool him. And this _was_ Kate. Her words he could dismiss—she could be teasing him, playing a trick on him, could be under duress of some kind and forced to pretend not to know him for his own safety or hers or something.

But her eyes—she couldn't fake the expression in her eyes. If she were teasing him for whatever reason, no matter how good her poker face (and frankly, Kate had a frighteningly-good poker face), her eyes would give her away, the glints of green always betrayed any amusement she felt. If she was under duress, scared or disturbed or angry in any way, her eyes would show it.

Now, her eyes were… indifferent. A little tinged with wariness and with suspicion but mostly indifferent. Without even the faintest glint of gold or green to be seen.

He really was nobody to her.

He wasn't the author whose works she'd admired, whose words had saved her as she'd once admitted to him. He wasn't even the mischief-making playboy whose reputation and rap sheet had irritated her when they first met. He wasn't the wise-cracking person of interest who had insinuated himself into Allison Tisdale's murder investigation and refused to leave.

And he certainly wasn't her friend or her partner, let alone her lover and her fiancé.

He was nothing to her.

Oh God…

His chest hurt as if his ribs were broken, he was suddenly dizzy, feeling as if the entire world had tilted on its head and then begun spinning backwards.

Alexis. He needed to see Alexis, needed to hug Alexis. Surely, surely, even in this universe, he still had Alexis. Right? Even this alternate universe—he made a mental note to never laugh about an alternate universe theory again, this wasn't funny at all—couldn't be so cruel as to deprive him of the existence of his fiancée _and_ his daughter. Right?

He wanted to see Alexis pretty much all the time but at that moment, he needed it, needed to see Alexis's face, her smile. Alexis, who was the center of his world and now, now when everything else about his world was wrong, he needed the center of his world back.

"My daughter," he managed to say in answer to Kate's—no, he couldn't think of her as Kate; she _wasn't_ Kate, not _his_ Kate—_Captain_ Beckett's question about if there was anyone he wanted to call. "I'd like to talk to my daughter."

(In this universe, Kate had made Captain already? Oh God, had meeting him, having him as her partner held her back in her career, prevented her from advancing somehow? He pushed the thought away. Remembered Kate telling him she couldn't have defeated Bracken without him, remembered Kate telling him that all she wanted was him. Clung to those memories. His Kate wouldn't care. His Kate wanted him as her partner. His Kate _loved_ him.)

His first thought had been that he wanted to call _her_, wanted to call Kate. If anyone could make sense of all this, if anyone could return some sanity to the insanity he was living in, it was Kate. His sensible, steady, practical, strong Kate. If he was going insane, if he were going to fall apart—and he actually feared he might—then he wanted Kate. He could rely on Kate. She filled in the cracks, made him strong where he was weak, kept him grounded.

He had no Kate to call, he suddenly thought. And somehow, ridiculously, that thought almost hurt worse than the one that in this world, his fiancée didn't know who he was, he had no fiancée.

In this world, he didn't have Kate.

Not even as a fan of his writing but certainly not as a friend or a partner or a lover. He didn't have Kate.

Painfully, he suddenly remembered what he'd told her when he proposed to her. _I'm proposing because I can't imagine my life without you. _

For a fleeting, crazy second, he almost wanted to laugh, rather hysterically. Where his overactive imagination had failed him, now it seemed fate or the higher powers or whatever had arranged for him to experience what life without Kate would be like.

"Very well, Mr. Castle. We'll arrange to have your daughter contacted for you," Ka—no, _Captain_ Beckett—told him briskly, standing up. For half a second, he was distracted, his gaze drawn—inevitably—to the endless length of her legs. But even that distraction, the flare of desire, hurt him.

She was wearing a skirt. At the precinct. To interrogate a possibly insane stranger, for all she knew. No, this wasn't his Kate at all.

He had no Kate.

No no no no no. From somewhere deep inside him, he felt determination welling up, drowning out his shock and his hurt and his aching sense of loss.

He wouldn't stay here—wherever here was. He'd find his way back to his universe, to _his_ home, to _his_ Kate.

He would find his way back to his Kate, no matter what it took.

And then he would marry her. He would make it official in the eyes of the law and the world and the universe—everyone—that his heart, his life, belonged to Kate.

_His_ Kate. He remembered the way she'd looked in bed that morning, her sleep-tousled hair, the flush of sleep on her cheeks, the so-familiar warmth of her body curled next to his.

Yes. For that, to return to that sight, to _his_ Kate sleeping beside him in his bed, he would do anything.

He loved her. She loved him. And he suddenly knew that _nothing_ else mattered.

A month, she'd said, to return to normal, to find their normal rhythm, to become _them_ again.

His unexplained disappearance still bothered them both, he knew, although they both tended to skirt around the subject now, having already mostly said the important things. He had vague, inexplicable dreams that he could never remember with any clarity when he woke up except that they tended to leave him distracted, a little off-balance for the rest of the day. He knew she still had dreams too, dreams about his absence, dreams when she would cry or sob his name in her sleep, and he'd wake her up and she'd clutch him to her as if she thought he might dissolve into thin air if she didn't keep a tight enough hold on him.

He knew she trusted him and believed him when he swore he didn't remember anything more but he also knew it bothered her. It was in a new tinge of uncertainty when she glanced at him sometimes, in the faint thread of caution in her tone when she spoke about anything that remotely related to people's ability to remember the past in general and about his disappearance specifically. It bothered him too, made him a little more easily distracted than usual, added a little extra caution whenever he spoke about anything that happened in the past because his sense of how long it had been since certain things had happened was now skewed by the missing two months. He couldn't refer to a movie they'd "just" watched because it hadn't been recent, had been almost four months ago, even if to him, it had only been a couple weeks. Had to stop and edit any phrases like "the last time we did this" or references to the rather hurried weeks of planning for their wedding-that-had-not-happened that still felt so, so recent to him. (And the thought of that wedding that hadn't happened hurt him too, his vivid writer's imagination filling in the long-imagined sight of Kate in a wedding dress, of their nearest and dearest bustling around full of good wishes and congratulations, of Kate brimming with hope and happiness and love…)

So he'd understood her reasoning and agreed with it in waiting a month.

Now, faced with a reality with no Kate at all, a life without Kate, he knew it didn't really matter.

His unexplained disappearance would haunt them until, well, until it was explained, he supposed, but it didn't really matter. Nothing else really mattered, no matter what else fate or the higher powers chose to throw at them, all the uncertainties of the future and the lingering questions over the past—he and Kate would deal with them together. He and Kate could deal with _anything_ together.

All that really mattered was that they _loved_ each other.

Alexis was the center of his world. Kate was the center of his heart, his life.

And he wanted everyone to know it. Wanted the world to know that he, Richard Edgar Alexander Rodgers Castle, belonged to Katherine Houghton Beckett. Because he wasn't himself without her, couldn't really _be_ himself without her.

He wanted to promise his love, his life, his heart, his very soul to Kate—he already had in some sense but he wanted it to be official, to be binding. Wanted to say the words aloud—_I, Richard Edgar Castle, take you, Katherine Houghton Beckett, to be my lawfully-wedded wife_—wanted to hear the words—_I, Katherine Houghton Beckett, take you, Richard Edgar Castle, to be my lawfully-wedded husband_—wanted to see the words on paper, declaring him and Kate to be husband and wife.

Husband and wife. Married.

He was a writer and he knew that words mattered. Words shaped and created reality.

And the reality he wanted was to be married to Kate.

Yes, he would find his way back to Kate, to his love, his life, his home.

_His Kate. _He kept his memories of her—Kate, smiling, laughing, teasing him, building theory with him, making plans for their future with him, _loving_ him—firmly fixed in his mind. Kate was home. Kate was _Always_.

He remembered what Kate had said to him on that morning after she'd been kidnapped and interrogated by Vulcan Simmons. _Babe, I wasn't alone… the only thing that kept me going was thinking about you, about our future, the wedding. You were with me the whole time. _

Yes, he still had his Kate. Even in this universe, he still had his Kate. She was a part of him, the best part of him, and he wasn't really alone.

_Thinking about you, about our future, the wedding… _

And because of her, for her, he could face anything, do anything, to make his way back to her. He was the master of crazy theories and not even the insanity of being flung into an alternate universe could keep him from going back to his home, to his Kate.

_~The End~_

_A/N 2: Two more days! _


End file.
